Despite a wide range of search engine choices, Google remains the number one choice for over 3.5 million searches every minute! Google’s objective is a simple one – to deliver search results users find interesting, relevant, and timely. In just the last two years Google has tweaked its algorithm to include the importance of usability, such as measuring website speed and placing emphasis on unique content.
As millions of people around the world get ready to celebrate Valentine’s Day, show your website some love by sticking to these simple SEO tips.
Google Rewards Unique Content
Google loves unique content. Over the last few years, we have experienced an increase in the importance of content curation and creation as an SEO marketing tool. Now more than ever, consumers around the world leverage the power of the vast internet to find information. As a result, Google has placed a high value on creating content that is unique.
Additionally, Google delivers big ticks in its search engine calculations. When you create content visitors will be more likely to backlink to your website. Visitors will be more likely to share content that includes videos, ebooks, and blogs.
A Fresh Look
When was the last time you updated your website? Is your Copyright date from a decade ago? If so, you may get lost in Cyberspace. Google loves to crawl new content and add it to their database. Be sure to update your content on a regular basis, to keep it fresh and relevant.
It’s a great idea to add something new to your website regularly. Whether it’s a new web page, product, video, or article, providing something for Google to crawl is a great way to boost your search engine results.
The Importance of Metadata
Every page on your website contains a space between the <head> tags to insert information about the contents of your page. Metadata is important for resource discovery, organizing e-resources, digital identification, and archiving and preservation. Your metadata is an essential element to your website and will help searchers to find your website.
There are several different types of metadata, to include the Title Metadata, Description Metadata, and Keyword Metadata.
– Title Metadata – Perhaps the most important metadata on your page, your title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window. It’s also the information located in the headline within search engine results.
– Description Metadata – Description metadata is an accurate and concise description of what is contained within your website. Description metadata is the textual description a browser will use in search engine return. The goal of this metadata is to encourage and entice searchers to enter your website. A great meta description will typically contain two full sentences.
– Keyword Metadata – A specific type of meta tags, keyword metadata appears in the HTML code of your various web pages. These keywords tell search engines the topic of your web page. Meta keywords are different from regular keywords. Unlike other keywords, which are live and visible on your web page, meta keywords appear “behind the scenes,” in the source code of your page. Be sure to include a variety of phrases for your website. As a general rule, try to keep your data to about 6 – 8 phrases, containing 1 – 4 words per phrase.
Website Speed
Just like your potential consumer, Google does not want to wait around for your website to load. Google is efficient, and they love to get things done swiftly. Speed is a critical factor when it comes time for Google to determine your web site’s ranking compared to another web site with the same search terms. If your website loads quickly, both your visitor and Google will be happy. On the other hand, if it takes forever for your website to load, you may end up losing a potential customer, as well as Google’s attention.
There are hundreds of elements Google considers as they decide where a web page will show up in search results. However, if you start with these basic SEO elements, you’ll be well on your way to reaching the top search engine results.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to improve your search engine rankings, contact a member of our team to learn more.